I accepted an offer of this book to review, and finally finished the book with total admiration for both the geologist who developed the many segments of the books 30+ years ago; and his son, whose restrained editing is both erudite and a labor of love. This book moved me, impressed me, and inspired me.

The other reviews are vastly better in quality–more consistent in their thoughtfulness–than one generally finds in the non-fiction world, and that is itself a testament to the core value of this work.

The author appears to have been inspired by C. P. Snow’s Rede lecture at Oxford in 1959.

My notes from this work:

+ Core problem is not climate but overpopulation

+ Huge imbalance between the sciences rampant and the humanities dormant–man as toolmaker has been an outrageous success, man as reflector an abysmal failure–the spiritual has not kept pace with the material

+ In geology time, man is a total newcomer, see page 19 that I will scan into my own site, I refuse to load images here since Amazon destroyed over 350 to get rid of 12 of Bush-Obama sharing the same face.

+ Man is a part of nature, not unique in that sense, but man’s ego is man’s death–nature has no ego

+ Man is an animal operating on animal instincts UNTIL SUCH TIME as man achieves cultural and consciousness evolution–to deny this reality is to forego all hope of educating humanity, It is man’s ability to have expectations, to covet another’s goods, man’s basic greed, that is tearing the heart out of the Earth

+ Humanity has NOT had a “political” or social revolution equal to the agricultural and industrial revolutions–absent such a revolution, the human species is doomed to extinction

+ Politicians, clergy, academics, media have all been worthless as leaders.

+ The above, politicians and their corporate masters especially, have failed to develop human resources at the same pace as they have developed (looted) physical resources.